Assad cedes ground to Islamists as calls to oust him grow

Syrian President Bashar Assad made piecemeal concessions to Islamist opponents
of his regime on Wednesday, amid growing calls from activists for a “Martyrs
Week” to avenge the deaths of scores in protests nationwide in recent
weeks.

The country’s Education Ministry reversed a decision on Wednesday
that banned teachers from wearing the niqab – the full Islamic veil that reveals
only a woman’s eyes – and authorities closed the country’s only
casino.

State-run media reported the decisions to allow teachers wearing
the niqab to return to work. In July, authorities dismissed 1,200 female
teachers wearing the niqab, in an apparent bid to maintain the country’s secular
identity.

Casino Damascus – open only since January 1 – sparked an outcry
from religious conservatives over state-sanctioned gambling. A day earlier,
Assad’s government suspended all soccer matches, in an apparent bid to avoid
gatherings that may turn into a rallying point for anti-government
protests.

“The Syrian Revolution 2011” Facebook page called for protests
across the country on Thursday and Friday, saying it is “Martyrs
Week.”

By Wednesday, the page had more than 100,000 fans.

Prof.
Moshe Maoz, a Syria expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said he
doesn’t expect the Assad regime to give in on anything beyond merely cosmetic
reform: “He’s not going to give up.

His back is against the wall and he
knows that if he falls there could be a massacre of him and his family. Survival
is the key word,” Maoz said.

“The regime is strong, the opposition is not
organized, except for the Muslim Brotherhood, but it isn’t very strong,” he
said. “The army is still loyal to Assad, particularly since key officers are
Alawite, or Sunnis or Christians allied with the Alawites, and they are not
going to depose [the president] as did their Egyptian counterparts because they
depend on the regime.”

Last week, the influential jihadist cleric Abu
Basir al- Tartusi posted an article on his website titled, “What do the people
know about the sectarian Syrian regime?” in which he claims the Alawi sect, an
offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, is “pagan” and disconnected from the rest of the
Muslim world.

Tartusi, a Syrian, wrote that that disconnect allowed
Assad’s Alawite forces to shoot at the mostly Sunni protesters without mercy and
without remorse.

The Assad regime “has not done a thing for the sake of
the homeland and the citizens after more than 40 years in power, other than
opening more prisons,” he wrote, according to a translation distributed by the
Middle East Media Research Institute, a press monitoring organization. Tartusi
called on Syria’s Alawite community – comprising 12 percent of the population
but dominating the army and security forces – to join the fight against the
regime.

On Tuesday, two policemen were shot dead by unidentified gunmen
near Damascus, state television said. The policemen were carrying out a “normal
patrol” when the gunmen fired on them in the area of Kafar Batna, the channel
said, without giving further details.

The area is near the Damascus
suburb of Douma, where security forces shot dead at least eight protesters on
Friday who took part in a large demonstration demanding political
freedoms.

The same day, Syrian human rights activists told The New York
Times they believed the death toll since the start of the unrest had reached at
least 173 people, including 15 in Douma and 143 in Deraa, the southern city
where the demonstrations began.

The Paris-based International Federation
for Human Rights, working with the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies,
said it had documented 123 deaths, including 22 in Douma.

Both figures
were based on data provided by doctors, victims’ family members and
witnesses.

On Monday
she spoke to Reuters of being dragged by her hair while protesting in Damascus
in support of political prisoners: “It was surreal. I was dragged for what felt
like the length of two streets. The apparatchiks looked at me as if I was not
their compatriot.

They kept shouting that I was an Israeli
spy.

“As I stood bruised in front of the judge at the Palace of Justice,
I thought that the only progress the Syrian regime was making was in making up
absurd charges,” she said. “No one has the right to be a master of a nation.”